Established in 2008, this blog is an independent, common sense, look at challenges and opportunities in sports and financial investing, with occasional diversions as my mood takes me. I am not a tipster, nor is this a Profit and Loss report either. They are boring.

Saturday, 6 July 2013

The last Benford update was almost two years ago, and since the topic came up, it seemed as good a time as any to update the numbers.After 2,520 active days on Betfair since 1/1/2006 (what a life), the numbers look like this:

The numbers as of 2009 and 2011 are left in as a reference, and not too much has changed in two years. The 1 has gone up a little, and now occurs slightly more often than it should, but the 2 shows up slightly less than expected. No digit is more than 1% off - and overall they match pretty closely.The scariest part of this exercise was probably that I have totalled just 222 days of being completely idle in seven and a half years, although activity varies from one punt to several hours of trading.If anyone else wants to try this, I feel very sorry for you, but Excel does makes it easy, and heaven forbid you have a few negatives in your spreadsheet, the below formula accounts for that and generates the Benford number for you.E29 is the cell you are targeting:

About Me

I have had a life-long interest in sports and after studying Pure Mathematics with Statistics at secondary school, have been fascinated by odds and probability.
The first system I came up with was a simple one - back the favourite and double up after a loss until a winner. Simple enough in theory, and I told my Dad about it. Not being a betting man himself, he ran it by some of his colleagues, and came home to tell me that it wouldn’t work because a long losing run would mean that the bank would be empty. Then there was always the possibility that the winner would be returned at odds-on, meaning that the total returns would not match the outlay. Not what a ten year old wants to hear! Only slightly daunted, I then went on a search for the Holy Grail, the secret to riches that I knew was out there somewhere. Finally in 2004 I stumbled across an article about Betting Exchanges and four years on I am able to make a steady profit. I am at that age where I can start thinking about retirement and anything I make from trading sports will bring that day forward.